SitePoint.com

raena · Dec 8, 2009, 19:09

Once again we've deliberated over the member who best exemplifies what we love best about these forums. In November, we've chosen the amazing DCrux, whose advice on all things business, writing, and information design helps heaps of people all over these big forums of ours.

There'll be an interview soon, but in the meantime, I hope you'll join me in congratulating DCrux on his shiny new award!

AutisticCuckoo · Dec 8, 2009, 22:31

Congratulations!

macintox! · Dec 9, 2009, 02:57

Congratulation Cheers!

hooperman · Dec 9, 2009, 06:07

This is long overdue. Congratulations DCrux. I look forward to the interview.

SiberianHuskey · Dec 9, 2009, 13:48

Do you get money or a gift certificate for your favorite place when you are the member of the month ?

Datura · Dec 9, 2009, 14:09

Yes, this is about time. Thank you for all your wonderfully consistent posts

RyanReese · Dec 9, 2009, 14:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by SiberianHuskey

Do you get money or a gift certificate for your favorite place when you are the member of the month ?

Nope just the shiny badge

. Congratulation!

tetsuo shima · Dec 10, 2009, 01:11

congratz

akritic · Dec 10, 2009, 04:51

Congratulations

ralph.m · Dec 10, 2009, 05:12

Congratulations! (The clock has struck 12, and I'm back to my badgeless Cinderellahood

)

I look forward to your interview. It's a fun exercise.

AlexDawson · Dec 10, 2009, 05:45

Congratulations DCrux, you give a lot of good commentaries to the content writing section so it's well deserved

hibeads · Dec 10, 2009, 19:17

thanks for share....great.....

jezzicaz789 · Dec 11, 2009, 00:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by raena

Once again we've deliberated over the member who best exemplifies what we love best about these forums. In November, we've chosen the amazing DCrux, whose advice on all things business, writing, and information design helps heaps of people all over these big forums of ours.

There'll be an interview soon, but in the meantime, I hope you'll join me in congratulating DCrux on his shiny new award!

Hi all!
I've just visited this forum. Happy to get acquainted with you. Thanks.

Shaun(OfTheDead) · Dec 11, 2009, 21:08

woo hoo!

kohoutek · Dec 13, 2009, 11:02

And finally, the belated interview with DCrux.

The internet is a linguistic environment, and as such web designers, user interface specialists, web developers, information architects, and website owners - among many other professionals in this field - inevitably deal with language. On your website you educate mainly on Information Design, Captology, and explain the significance of Desirability in Design...

How did your passion for these topics come about?

While doing research on a client project I read a Peter Drucker quote in Forbes magazine. Essentially Drucker, an extremely prominent thought leader in business's and management, was taking information technology to task for doing “more harm than good to business management.” An engineer by training, this piqued my interest.

Nobody was getting to the crux with design-as-superficial decoration, so the Design Crux site was developed to provide an alternative: Information Design. Information design as human-data interaction, with methodologies based around human factors for context, persuasion, and desirability. There are whole fields of design, existing for decades, which I brought together and integrated as information design.

What is language to you? And what should language be to every web designer?

Design is language. Text is interface. Design speaks louder than words on paper, and proves you really do understand your customer.

Consequently many sites send the wrong message. For instance the richly designed nonprofit design sends the message “We’re blowing our budget on frivolous self-image, not effectiveness.”

One project designer had done an absolutely flawless grunge design: blood red spatter grunge on black. Aesthetically there was absolutely nothing wrong with the design. And, of course, the word branding raised its ugly head.

The client: An Orthodontic Surgery Center. Where the color red and spatter symbolizes gore, grunge symbolizes unsanitary conditions and black raises the specter of death in a user’s mind. What everybody forgot is brands happen in the customer and user’s mind, not a graphics app.

Quite a few blithely toss around the word branding or color psychology. They just don’t really think through the design crux and import of the words they use.

How should a web design project be started ideally?

With a target user profile based on data, a persona working through a scenario where the web design acts to solve some problem and provide some benefit.

No placeholder text, or “lorem ipsum,” because then you’re not just separating content from style. Lorem ipsum actually estranges content from the design supposing to support it.

Too many imagine the user as a faceless, purposeless, imaginary friend; ardently cheering on every whim, baseless assumption. So along with a persona and genuine content, build in A/B split run testing from the start.

What is "Captology" and what place does/should it have in modern web design?

It can be termed persuasion design. Everybody tries to persuade the user, they just don’t research technique or testing methodology. Captology has a number of insights to offer on what really works, and offers an important alternative to popular opinion.

For example, generically pretty designs don’t test out as working nearly as well as message to market match. Too many designers are designing for one kind of user: The viewer of their own portfolio. Consequently more slick designs do more for branding Adobe or persuading people to hire the designer, not the objective the client wanted the designer to support.

Content anorexia... many clients simply do not provide content when confronting you with their new project. What to do?

Use content driven design to send the message content matters. That starts with a refusal to use lorem ipsum filler. But lorem ipsum is merely the symptom of content irrelevant design every piece of the portfolio persuades the client to ask for.

Designers set themselves up for the problems they later face with client negotiations. The designs of their very own sites send the message content is irrelevant.

The only alternative is design as superficial gimmickry.

Dont’ write? Collaborate with writers and have them in early and often as part of the design process.

Whose responsibility is it (or should be) how copy is written on a website?

Most site designs send the clear message content is irrelevant to the design process, so clients pick up on that. You're already responsible for your own content delays because design is language.

It’s impossible to plan a site without a clear idea of writing and content types. The CMS approach should make it clear you rely on content do drive the design. If not, you're doing it wrong.

The happy coincidence is you get an upsell path for value added services like content strategy and visual merchandising (the other content).

On Commercial websites: Should potential customers be persuaded or seduced to buy a product or service I offer?

Very often clients expect the design to be persuasive. It just isn’t formally stated. The alternative is not merely neutral facts.

Knowing persuasive design also means you know what dissuades users and how to put your best foot forward.

More clients than designers will willingly admit don’t have the artistic hangups. Bankable brand preference devolves to entertaining but irrelevant brand awareness without persuasive design.

What material do you suggest as mandatory reading to anyone who is in the business of providing content, or selling a service/product?

Information Anxiety by Richard Saul Wurman

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins

Why We Buy by Paco Underhill and the online article Webogram Power, parts 1 and 2 by Martin Lindstrom

Persuasive Technology: Using Computer to Change What We Think and Do by B.J. Fogg

My Design Crux site has articles on these topics, and more. You’ll also find exclusive interviews with a number of authors.

Ryan Singer (from 37signals) wrote a nice introductory article on "patterns" in web design. How do you approach the designing of a website?

Persona and scenario design. Then content strategy design including a Unique Selling Proposition, site purpose and supporting objectives. Consequently everybody gets a clear foundation to understand who the design is for. Arguments shift from what’s cool to what Cindy is looking for in the display of a backpack for her 12-year-old son, Tony.

Quick and dirty wireframes prototypes nobody has invested a lot of time or effort developing means nobody is going to try to protect an investment at the expense of the user.

Get a prototype in front of a user as fast as possible and use it as a crucible to burn away the false assumptions and design myopia which typically goes on during the design process.

Concrete versus abstract: Do creative, non straight-forward headlines and page titles have a place in a well designed website?

This is a testable proposition.

Creative headlines that steal attention but are ultimately irrelevant leave the reader feeling cheated for paying attention. Anyone who starts out feeling cheated won’t be converted into a customer or regular user.

What must a web designer do in order to not design for fellow web designers but rather for the user?

When posting for critique, add the user, the purpose for the site, or objective the page was designed for. A/B split run testing works just as well for design.

You can’t manage what you don’t measure and never test, so the CMS only manages content through testing. So test.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to do the interview.

kohoutek

Paul O'B · Dec 13, 2009, 11:28

Congratulations and interesting interview

Datura · Dec 13, 2009, 11:42

Some wise words in this interview. Thank you

Shaun(OfTheDead) · Dec 13, 2009, 12:46

Interesting.

I know more than once I've fallen into the trap of having projects stalled because of a lack of content.

To combat that, one of the first things I do in my very first meeting with new clients is to pressure them into round their content up and writing, but I haven't considered that notion you mentioned of my own influence of splitting design from content.

I think as a designer, my brain naturally puts more weight on the way something looks than what it actually says. A funny example is more than once when I'm out eating at someplace new, I'd stare at the menu for minutes, looking at the photographs and the lay out. Put it down. Then the waitress would walk up and ask for my order before I'll realise I haven't even read a word of it yet!

ralph.m · Dec 13, 2009, 14:33

Great interview. Very interesting, and a bit of a wake-up call, too. I'm looking forward to reading some of those references you gave.

AlexDawson · Dec 13, 2009, 20:51

Great interview and it follows many of the same principles I hold dear (especially when it comes to content before design - I have issues with Lipsum text in all it's glory). That and I agree with quick and dirty prototypes, the last thing you want is something fancy which will give the client delusions of grandeur for the website which will end up focusing more on the "shiny" and less on the "substance".

molona · Dec 14, 2009, 02:05

Congratulations DCrux, well deserved.

Also to kohoutek. Great interview. I have to say that I really agree with DCrux

akritic · Dec 14, 2009, 04:57

Great interview guys

Anu Smith · Dec 16, 2009, 01:17

Congratulations, Wish you to do same the work in future. Nice interview.

holy2050 · Dec 16, 2009, 03:04

Congratulations!

Dark Tranquility · Dec 16, 2009, 03:25

Sorry! I am late!
Congrats buddy

Dec 8, 2009, 19:09	#1
raena SitePoint Guru Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Melbourne Posts: 772	Member of the Month, November 2009 Once again we've deliberated over the member who best exemplifies what we love best about these forums. In November, we've chosen the amazing DCrux, whose advice on all things business, writing, and information design helps heaps of people all over these big forums of ours. There'll be an interview soon, but in the meantime, I hope you'll join me in congratulating DCrux on his shiny new award! __________________ "I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favourite post on the internet." We'll miss you, Dan Schulz.

Dec 8, 2009, 22:31	#2
AutisticCuckoo SitePoint Author Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Ankh-Morpork Posts: 12,259	Congratulations! __________________ Birnam wood is come to Dunsinane

Dec 9, 2009, 13:48	#5
SiberianHuskey Animator / Artist Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 1,030	Do you get money or a gift certificate for your favorite place when you are the member of the month ? __________________ Creative Sheep ::Animator // Digital Artist Connoisseur::

Dec 9, 2009, 14:09	#6
Datura I Love Licorice Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Florida USA Posts: 5,801	Yes, this is about time. Thank you for all your wonderfully consistent posts __________________ Ulrike TUTs: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 . Don't ever get angry at a man for stating the truth ~ Rand

Dec 10, 2009, 01:11	#8
tetsuo shima SitePoint Evangelist Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Switzerland Posts: 587	congratz __________________ The SEO Faq thread Dependency injection made easy: Phemto

Dec 9, 2009, 02:57	#3
macintox! SitePoint Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 3	Congratulation Cheers!

Dec 9, 2009, 06:07	#4
hooperman SitePoint Wizard Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 4,262	This is long overdue. Congratulations DCrux. I look forward to the interview.

Dec 10, 2009, 04:51	#9
akritic hitherto unknown as Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 2,805	Congratulations

Dec 10, 2009, 05:12	#10
ralph.m Community Advisor Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 3,396	Congratulations! (The clock has struck 12, and I'm back to my badgeless Cinderellahood ) I look forward to your interview. It's a fun exercise. __________________ Twitter \| Words & Web Design scientiam adquiro eundo

Dec 10, 2009, 05:45	#11
AlexDawson Follow: @AlexDawsonUK Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: England, UK Posts: 7,731	Congratulations DCrux, you give a lot of good commentaries to the content writing section so it's well deserved

Dec 10, 2009, 19:17	#12
hibeads SitePoint Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 12	thanks for share....great.....

Dec 11, 2009, 21:08	#14
Shaun(OfTheDead) The World is Very Sexy Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Trinidad Posts: 2,596	woo hoo! __________________ "Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean

Dec 13, 2009, 11:02	#15
kohoutek Design Team Mentor Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Hamburg, Germany Posts: 2,696	And finally, the belated interview with DCrux. The internet is a linguistic environment, and as such web designers, user interface specialists, web developers, information architects, and website owners - among many other professionals in this field - inevitably deal with language. On your website you educate mainly on Information Design, Captology, and explain the significance of Desirability in Design... How did your passion for these topics come about? While doing research on a client project I read a Peter Drucker quote in Forbes magazine. Essentially Drucker, an extremely prominent thought leader in business's and management, was taking information technology to task for doing “more harm than good to business management.” An engineer by training, this piqued my interest. Nobody was getting to the crux with design-as-superficial decoration, so the Design Crux site was developed to provide an alternative: Information Design. Information design as human-data interaction, with methodologies based around human factors for context, persuasion, and desirability. There are whole fields of design, existing for decades, which I brought together and integrated as information design. What is language to you? And what should language be to every web designer? Design is language. Text is interface. Design speaks louder than words on paper, and proves you really do understand your customer. Consequently many sites send the wrong message. For instance the richly designed nonprofit design sends the message “We’re blowing our budget on frivolous self-image, not effectiveness.” One project designer had done an absolutely flawless grunge design: blood red spatter grunge on black. Aesthetically there was absolutely nothing wrong with the design. And, of course, the word branding raised its ugly head. The client: An Orthodontic Surgery Center. Where the color red and spatter symbolizes gore, grunge symbolizes unsanitary conditions and black raises the specter of death in a user’s mind. What everybody forgot is brands happen in the customer and user’s mind, not a graphics app. Quite a few blithely toss around the word branding or color psychology. They just don’t really think through the design crux and import of the words they use. How should a web design project be started ideally? With a target user profile based on data, a persona working through a scenario where the web design acts to solve some problem and provide some benefit. No placeholder text, or “lorem ipsum,” because then you’re not just separating content from style. Lorem ipsum actually estranges content from the design supposing to support it. Too many imagine the user as a faceless, purposeless, imaginary friend; ardently cheering on every whim, baseless assumption. So along with a persona and genuine content, build in A/B split run testing from the start. What is "Captology" and what place does/should it have in modern web design? It can be termed persuasion design. Everybody tries to persuade the user, they just don’t research technique or testing methodology. Captology has a number of insights to offer on what really works, and offers an important alternative to popular opinion. For example, generically pretty designs don’t test out as working nearly as well as message to market match. Too many designers are designing for one kind of user: The viewer of their own portfolio. Consequently more slick designs do more for branding Adobe or persuading people to hire the designer, not the objective the client wanted the designer to support. Content anorexia... many clients simply do not provide content when confronting you with their new project. What to do? Use content driven design to send the message content matters. That starts with a refusal to use lorem ipsum filler. But lorem ipsum is merely the symptom of content irrelevant design every piece of the portfolio persuades the client to ask for. Designers set themselves up for the problems they later face with client negotiations. The designs of their very own sites send the message content is irrelevant. The only alternative is design as superficial gimmickry. Dont’ write? Collaborate with writers and have them in early and often as part of the design process. Whose responsibility is it (or should be) how copy is written on a website? Most site designs send the clear message content is irrelevant to the design process, so clients pick up on that. You're already responsible for your own content delays because design is language. It’s impossible to plan a site without a clear idea of writing and content types. The CMS approach should make it clear you rely on content do drive the design. If not, you're doing it wrong. The happy coincidence is you get an upsell path for value added services like content strategy and visual merchandising (the other content). On Commercial websites: Should potential customers be persuaded or seduced to buy a product or service I offer? Very often clients expect the design to be persuasive. It just isn’t formally stated. The alternative is not merely neutral facts. Knowing persuasive design also means you know what dissuades users and how to put your best foot forward. More clients than designers will willingly admit don’t have the artistic hangups. Bankable brand preference devolves to entertaining but irrelevant brand awareness without persuasive design. What material do you suggest as mandatory reading to anyone who is in the business of providing content, or selling a service/product? Information Anxiety by Richard Saul Wurman Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins Why We Buy by Paco Underhill and the online article Webogram Power, parts 1 and 2 by Martin Lindstrom Persuasive Technology: Using Computer to Change What We Think and Do by B.J. Fogg My Design Crux site has articles on these topics, and more. You’ll also find exclusive interviews with a number of authors. Ryan Singer (from 37signals) wrote a nice introductory article on "patterns" in web design. How do you approach the designing of a website? Persona and scenario design. Then content strategy design including a Unique Selling Proposition, site purpose and supporting objectives. Consequently everybody gets a clear foundation to understand who the design is for. Arguments shift from what’s cool to what Cindy is looking for in the display of a backpack for her 12-year-old son, Tony. Quick and dirty wireframes prototypes nobody has invested a lot of time or effort developing means nobody is going to try to protect an investment at the expense of the user. Get a prototype in front of a user as fast as possible and use it as a crucible to burn away the false assumptions and design myopia which typically goes on during the design process. Concrete versus abstract: Do creative, non straight-forward headlines and page titles have a place in a well designed website? This is a testable proposition. Creative headlines that steal attention but are ultimately irrelevant leave the reader feeling cheated for paying attention. Anyone who starts out feeling cheated won’t be converted into a customer or regular user. What must a web designer do in order to not design for fellow web designers but rather for the user? When posting for critique, add the user, the purpose for the site, or objective the page was designed for. A/B split run testing works just as well for design. You can’t manage what you don’t measure and never test, so the CMS only manages content through testing. So test. Thanks a lot for taking the time to do the interview. kohoutek __________________ 100% Fluid and Sexy. Rockatee Version II has launched. Oh, and I'm super modern now. I'm on Twitter (@rockatee) If you'd like to see what I'm working on, head over to dribbble. Last edited by Paul O'B; Dec 13, 2009 at 14:40..

Dec 13, 2009, 11:28	#16
Paul O'B CSS Advisor Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Hampshire UK Posts: 29,695	Congratulations and interesting interview __________________ www.pmob.co.uk CSS FAQ 3 col demo Read My CSS Articles Ultimate CSS Reference

Dec 13, 2009, 11:42	#17
Datura I Love Licorice Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Florida USA Posts: 5,801	Some wise words in this interview. Thank you __________________ Ulrike TUTs: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 . Don't ever get angry at a man for stating the truth ~ Rand

Dec 13, 2009, 12:46	#18
Shaun(OfTheDead) The World is Very Sexy Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Trinidad Posts: 2,596	Interesting. I know more than once I've fallen into the trap of having projects stalled because of a lack of content. To combat that, one of the first things I do in my very first meeting with new clients is to pressure them into round their content up and writing, but I haven't considered that notion you mentioned of my own influence of splitting design from content. I think as a designer, my brain naturally puts more weight on the way something looks than what it actually says. A funny example is more than once when I'm out eating at someplace new, I'd stare at the menu for minutes, looking at the photographs and the lay out. Put it down. Then the waitress would walk up and ask for my order before I'll realise I haven't even read a word of it yet! __________________ "Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean

Dec 13, 2009, 14:33	#19
ralph.m Community Advisor Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 3,396	Great interview. Very interesting, and a bit of a wake-up call, too. I'm looking forward to reading some of those references you gave. __________________ Twitter \| Words & Web Design scientiam adquiro eundo

Dec 13, 2009, 20:51	#20
AlexDawson Follow: @AlexDawsonUK Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: England, UK Posts: 7,731	Great interview and it follows many of the same principles I hold dear (especially when it comes to content before design - I have issues with Lipsum text in all it's glory). That and I agree with quick and dirty prototypes, the last thing you want is something fancy which will give the client delusions of grandeur for the website which will end up focusing more on the "shiny" and less on the "substance".

Dec 14, 2009, 02:05	#21
molona Community Advisor Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: from Madrid to Heaven Posts: 4,043	Congratulations DCrux, well deserved. Also to kohoutek. Great interview. I have to say that I really agree with DCrux __________________ All Foods Natural A-templates Your signature is not visible to Search Engines SP Guidelines Keep the forum fluff free, please.

Dec 14, 2009, 04:57	#22
akritic hitherto unknown as Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 2,805	Great interview guys

Dec 16, 2009, 01:17	#23
Anu Smith SitePoint Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 3	Congratulations, Wish you to do same the work in future. Nice interview.

Dec 16, 2009, 03:04	#24
holy2050 SitePoint Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 2	Congratulations!

Dec 16, 2009, 03:25	#25
Dark Tranquility The Mind's I ® Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Mediterranean (TN-FR-IT-ML-MR) Posts: 8,784	Sorry! I am late! Congrats buddy __________________ *Create a successful Web Design Agency* XHTML users grow up! Follow me on TWITTER SCRIPTOMANIA HTML, CSS and PHP EDITOR Photoshop Tuts Gfx design Création site web Dan Schulz will be missed

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